Just how much embarrassment and disrespect can a BCS conference take—or be allowed to endure and still exist?

It’s a fair question for the Big East, which is coming off perhaps the most tumultuous offseason in the history of college football conferences.

Just nine years ago, this league best known for hoops was no slouch on the gridiron, counting solid programs like Boston College, Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Syracuse and Pitt among its members.

In 2013, when Syracuse and Pitt officially depart for the ACC, those schools will all be Big East history. Two of them—Miami and Virginia Tech—left for the ACC in 2004, Boston College did the same in 2005, and West Virginia bolted to the Big 12 this year.

So, now that it has invited Temple back after kicking it out of the league in 2004 for not being competitive enough, the Big East will be at eight teams this season. Next year, when it welcomes Houston, SMU, UCF, Memphis, Boise State and San Diego State (which, hysterically, is a member of the Big West in all other sports), five of its football-playing members will reside either west of the Mississippi River or on it (Memphis). That number would have been six had TCU not reneged on a November 2010 commitment to join the Big East and accept an invite from the Big 12 last October.

“It’s all very sad because this is probably the beginning of the death knell for the Big East,” says former Syracuse quarterback Don McPherson, who serves as the color analyst on Big East games for SportsNet New York. “I think (moving to the ACC) was the right move for my school, but I was torn. The idea of traveling to Boise State or San Diego State for conference games would have been hard for me to comprehend during my playing days. The rivalries and regional games that comprise college football is really the backbone of it. The notion that this is a national game is only held by the sponsors, not the fans.”

The hope is that the addition of those Western schools—especially Boise State—will make the league strong enough to compete for one of four bids to a national playoff that will go into effect in 2014. Although it has been the weakest of the six Bowl Championship Series leagues since the BCS went into effect in 1998, the Big East has benefited greatly from that association. Three of the last four automatic qualifiers from the league had at least three losses, including a 25th-ranked Connecticut team in 2010 that was demolished by Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, 48-20. There are questions about whether the Big East can produce a team (even an undefeated one) with a schedule good enough to be included in the new four-team playoff system.

“The Big East has more to lose in this than anyone,” Fox Sports college football analyst Charles Davis says. “UConn doesn’t get that trip to the Fiesta Bowl anymore.”

But can the Big East even continue to enjoy the fruits of its BCS membership over the next two years and get to 2014?

Other dominoes may fall next offseason and the league could be raided yet again. The ACC has reportedly shown strong interest in Rutgers and the New York metro TV market it would bring. And it could have just as easily been Louisville leaving for the Big 12 instead of West Virginia earlier this year. It has been rumored that the Cards will be the Big 12’s next target. If either of those current linchpins leaves, Boise State or SDSU could get cold feet, especially with the lure of automatic qualification no longer on the table for 2014. Would Navy’s expected entry into the Big East in 2015 be enough to withstand such an avalanche?

“I don’t think a TCU offer is out there for Boise; the Pac-12 and Big 12 are not coming after them,” Davis says. “I think they’ll keep their commitment, enjoy that AQ in 2013 and wait and see if there’s another realignment in 2014. …

“The problem for the Big East is there aren’t going to be many fans out there saying, ‘Wow, big game in the Big East this week—Boise State at Louisville. Can’t wait for that.’”

In medical terms, the Big East is a patient that has undergone numerous surgeries in a short period of time and is now resting in serious but stable condition. But it is extremely weak, and any sudden malady could prove fatal.

“I think the league was a bit shortsighted all along on this,” McPherson says. “They should have made some very high-level partners to secure a footprint in the Northeast early on. They should have made bold moves to bring Boston College back in and aggressively gone after Penn State and Maryland. But they were reactive and not proactive. As a result, the lack of an AQ in 2014 probably kills the Big East.”